By Nate Abraham Jr.
DITORIAL
Around thirty years ago, I accompanied my father to a meeting with a prominent Republican party official. The topic of the meeting was how Republicans could appeal to African-American voters.
The meeting didn’t go well. My father told. him that Republicans need to get out in the community, listen to and build relationships with Black folks. The party official asked my father if he was trying to tell him how to do his job. The meeting went downhill from there. Three decades later, Republicans still get very small share of Black votes.
I was reminded of this meeting recently when I read a news report about Democrats spending $20 million to figure out how to appeal to men. The party has lost a tremendous amount of support from men across ALL ethnic groups. Men have been leaving the Democratic party in droves.
The goal of the $20 million “Speaking With American Men: A Strategic Plan” is to invest in the “syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces.” According to the New York Times, part of the plan will involve advertising in video games and avoiding speaking to men in a moralizing tone.
Joy Behar, co-host of The View talk show, blasted the plan, saying that Democrats will spend “$20 million bucks just to talk to boys.”
“It’s a waste of money,” she added. “Maybe ‘they’ should spend their money on teaching men not to be such sexists.”
I agree with Behar on one thing. It IS a waste of money. In addition, her statement also reveals why men are leaving the Democratic Party. She thinks men are just boys and sexists. It’s hard to get people to support you when everything you say and do tells them how little you think of them.
Newsflash – Don’t show contempt for the people you
want to attract. Didn’t Democrats learn anything from the Hillary Clinton campaign?
Democrats and Republicans are mirror images of each other. Republicans don’t attract Black voters because they won’t take the time to build relationships with them and learn what issues are important to them. The vast majority of Black folks feel that Republicans have nothing but contempt for them.
Democrats have lost support from men because they openly show contempt and hostility towards them. They have no idea what issues are important to men, and like Joy Behar, too many of them don’t even think that understanding men is even important.
The parties are mirror images of each other. The major difference is that Republicans have proven that they can win national elections without attracting a significant amount of Black voters. Democrats cannot win without attracting more men.
